Vail Daily letter: It goes up to 11

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When anti-gunners say they want to limit magazine capacity to 10 rounds it brings to mind the mockumentary, "This Is Spinal Tap," in which band member Nigel Tufnel explains his preference for a particular guitar amp because its volume controls "go up to 11," humorously illuminating his total ignorance of the technology. The same is sadly true for anti-gunners.

Why do these people feel compelled to authoritatively opine on issues about which they know absolutely nothing, and worse, believe they must impose their ignorant and dysfunctional opinions on everyone else?

Any possible validity of the anti-gunners' opinions are negated by their arrogant and elitist hypocrisy, their ignorance of history and refusal to accept any statistical data that contradicts their preferred version of reality. For example, if strict gun control really worked, Chicago should be the safest city in the country.

With just the one single exception, the attack in Tucson last year, every public shooting in the U.S. since at least 1950 in which more than three people have been killed has taken place in a "gun free zone."

For years now, gun-free zones have provided a safe working environment only for criminals, yet the anti-gunners refuse to accept the fact their foolish ideas are worse than mere failures. Without exception, every murder ever committed occurred in a "murder-free zone" -- all of them. Perhaps the killers simply didn't get the memo.

Arguments for limiting magazine capacity are also based in ignorance. Anyone with a little practice and an opposable thumb can swap magazines in less than three seconds. And why is "10" the magic number? Apparently for the anti-gunners, the prospect of 10 deaths without changing magazines is a statistic, but 11 is a tragedy (to paraphrase Stalin). Never mind that most mass shootings involved a shooter with multiple guns.

Speaking of firearms ignorance, a "clip" is not a magazine. Magazines feed ammo to guns, clips feed ammo to magazines. And for those ignorant of firearms history, Wyatt Earp's contemporaries regarded him as an excellent marksman, so to criticize armed citizens as emulating Wyatt Earp is actually a compliment.

Those who argue that the founding fathers could not foresee our current firearms foolishly fail to acknowledge all the advancements in firearms technology these "extremists" witnessed at the time of the American Revolution and assumes they had no knowledge of the historic advances in weaponry and warfare, or history in general. Does anyone honestly believe the founders did not expect firearms technology to continue to advance? Are people really this dumb?

To claim one supports the Second Amendment but also supports government gun controls, restrictions and regulations is a contradiction in terms. It is an expression of cognitive dissonance and suggests the claimant is ignorant of the meaning of the word "infringe" -- as in, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

For the terminally nuanced among us, to argue for restrictions on magazine capacity or ammo or grip style or color, ad nauseam, are still infringements.

With regards to allowing teachers to be armed or hiring armed guards for schools, if you do not trust your children's teachers to have guns, why do you trust those teachers with your children?

Anti-gunner David Gregory vociferously condemns these ideas but sends his own children to a school with 11 armed guards! Sen. Diane Feinstein has her concealed carry permit, but demands this right be denied to the proletariat! Comrade Obama and his family are protected by heavily armed security 24x7 wherever they go, and he just signed an executive order granting himself this protection for life, all at taxpayers' expense, of course. How can anyone respect the opinion of these ignorant elitist hypocrites?

Also, if upon their release from prison we fear that felons may wish to return to their chosen vocation and arm themselves accordingly, do our courts and politicians bear any responsibility to their next victims? And what of the all law-abiding victims disarmed by politicians through anti-gun legislation already on the books that have been assaulted or killed? Is no one culpable?

Vice President Biden deceptively argues for any gun controls that might prevent just one shooting death, while ignoring the fact that private firearms stop crime 2.5 million times each year, and that each and every day in America more than 223 million firearms were not used to commit a crime (BATF estimate, 1995).

Laws do not prevent crime. If they did, there would be no criminals. So why do some people continue to believe passing still more laws will do anything other than further infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens?

Already there are nearly 500,000 pages in the US Legal Code, plus tens of thousands more pages in individual state legal codes, yet in 2008 over 11 million crimes were committed daily (1.4 million were considered violent crimes). Why should anyone believe more laws are the solution to anything?

Drug use kills more than twice as many people as guns and those drugs are already illegal, so how can anyone rationally argue that passing more laws will save lives?

Mandatory sentencing already exists for many crimes, yet those crimes are still committed. Clearly, if someone is determined to kill, they will find a way, and no law will stop them.

Some killers have resorted to assaulting their victim using a club such as an ax, a hammer, a baseball bat, or any number of other objects including banjos (true story!). Anti-gunners summarily dismiss these examples because they reveal a fatal flaw in their otherwise irrational argument: Inanimate objects don't kill, people do.

The anti-gunners' progressive propaganda blames America's "gun culture" for violence in our society, but a little objective research proves these assertions to be false.

It wasn't supposed to happen in England, with its very strict gun-control laws, and yet in June 2010 Derrick Bird shot 12 people to death and wounded 11 others in the northwestern county of Cumbria. A headline in the London Times read: "Toughest laws in the world could not stop Cumbria tragedy."

No guns? No problem! In March of 2010, a series of mass stabbings, hammer attacks, and cleaver attacks in the People's Republic of China resulted in at least 25 dead and some 115 injured.

Last month in China a 36-year-old villager stabbed 24 people, including 23 children and an elderly woman, in a knife attack at Chenpeng Village Primary School. The children targeted by the knifeman are thought likely to be between 6 and 11 years of age.

The objects or means used by a killer to achieve their goal are just tools. A gun is a tool, and all tools can be used for good or ill purposes. Shall we ban them all?

Seriously, automobiles do kill far more people than guns - three times more according to the CDC/FBI. Ever hear of vehicular homicide? These days it gives a whole different meaning to the term "assault vehicle" and justifies the comparison to the reactionary hysterics to ban firearms.

By definition, criminals ignore our silly laws. And conversely, only law-abiding citizens obey those laws (as best they can, anyway). Many areas of the law have already become so onerous that most honest citizens have likely violated some of them, making us all criminals in the eyes of a government that violates its own laws daily.

More gun laws are not the answer. Here's an idea - why not pass just one law that makes murder a crime regardless of method or venue. Oh, wait ...